Statement by the Communist Party of Ireland
6 April 2017
The Communist Party of Ireland calls on working people to continue to mobilise and push for the full abolition of water charges and for a referendum to put the people’s ownership of all water resources into the Constitution of Ireland.
It has been the people’s persistent struggle over the last few years that has forced the Irish establishment and their EU guardians to back down regarding water charges. It has been the people’s mobilisation and resistance that has been the decisive factor, not parliamentary manoeuvring.
The establishment have constantly tried to draw the people’s demands into the quagmire of Dáil procedures and committee structures, into structures and processes that they control. This is a process designed to emasculate the demands and the will of the people and make them submit to corporate needs and power.
We need to make the national demonstration next Saturday an important step in the remobilisation of the mass movement, which is the only sure way to prevent the Irish establishment and the European Union regrouping and launching their counter-strategy.
The struggle for water is but one small step in the assertion of the sovereignty of the Irish people and their right to effect the changes in social and economic policy that they require, regardless of what the European Union will or will not allow.
Working people need now to assert the sovereignty and independence of our country, to give substance to democracy. We call for the dropping of all charges pending against water protesters and the quashing of all convictions—not a pardon, as that implies guilt. Protesting is a democratic right that needs to be defended. It is one off the very few weapons working people have.
Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, together with with other establishment parties, are part of the problem, not part of the solutions to the challenges facing our people. A victory on water is small but necessary step.
